The invention relates to fish processing and more specifically to a method and apparatus for cleaning fish.
Presently commercial fishermen when fishing with purse nets gather the nets close to their ship and empty the catch onto the deck of the ship. The fish are then sorted and stored in refrigerated storage areas until the ship goes into port. In port the frozen fish are unloaded and processed for sale. The fish are sometimes skinned and filleted before they are sold.
Often a substantial portion of the fish, such as the head, tail, skin, and backbone are not commercially marketable. Therefore when a fish is stored in an unprocessed state, the unuseable parts are a costly waste of space in the refrigerated chamber.
It is an object of the invention to provide a novel fish processing unit on a commercial fishing boat that processes the fish immediately after they are caught and then discards unusable parts and freezing the saleable portions.
It is also an object of the invention to provide a novel fish processing unit that receives a whole fish at one end and it exits the other end in four quarters, including the backbone as waste or a discard portion.
It another object of the invention to provide a novel method of processing a whole fish that utilizes a fish skinner unit that allows a quarter portion of a fish with skin on its outer surface to be transported across the top of the fish skinner unit in a single pass to remove the skin.
It is an additional object of the invention to provide a novel fish processing unit for longitudinally quartering a fish during a single pass through the unit that is economical to manufacture and market.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a novel fish skinner unit that is economical to manufacture and market.